Soft-linking energy systems and GIS models to investigate spatial hydrogen infrastructure development in a low-carbon UK energy system

This paper describes an innovative modelling approach focusing on linking spatial (GIS) modelling of hydrogen (H-2) supply, demands and infrastructures, anchored within a economy-wide energy systems model (MARKAL). The UK government is legislating a groundbreaking climate change mitigation target for a 60% CO2 reduction by 2050, and has identified H-2 infrastructures and technologies as potentially playing a major role, notably in the transport sector, An exploratory set of linked GIS-MARKAL model scenarios generate a range of nuanced insights including spatial matching of supply and demand for optimal zero-carbon H-2 deployment, a crucial finding on successive clustering of demand centres to enable economies of scale in H-2 supply and distribution, the competitiveness of imported liquid H-2 and of liquid H-2 distribution, and sectoral competition for coal with carbon sequestration between electricity and H-2 production under economy-wide CO2 constraints. (c) 2008 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.